throwing up

Verb

throw up (third-person singular simple present throws up, present participle throwing up, simple past threw up, past participle thrown up)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see throw, up.
   • Away to the window I flew like a flash,
     Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.1823, Clement Clarke Moore, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
2. (ambitransitive, informal) To vomit.
   • The baby threw up all over my shirt.

   Synonyms:

   chuck up, hurl, upchuck, vomit

3. (transitive) To produce or reveal something new or unexpected.
   • This system has thrown up a few problems.
4. (transitive) To cause something such as dust or water to rise into the air.
   • The car wheels threw up a shower of stones.
5. (dated, transitive) To erect, particularly hastily.
   • Every depression in the ground had been utilized; every rise taken advantage of, to dig rifle-pits or throw up a little earthwork, surrounded with sand-bags […]1872, Every Saturday, page 96

   Synonyms:

   run up, knock up, throw together, knock together, slap together

6. (ambitransitive) To give up, abandon something.
   • “No!” returned the spy. “I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man knows...1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

See all 10 meanings of throw up